Flow my Tears, the Alliance Said
by Kajhe
Summary: From the slums of the homeworld to galactic hero, the story of Commander Shepard and his journeys through the galaxy.


_2163 CE  
_

* * *

It had recently become his custom to wander off by himself, in search of secluded areas. Not that they were particularly hard to find; eventually, he became accustomed to a certain spot, to the extent that he would become annoyed on those rare occasions when he would arrive there to already find others there.

It was not a terribly hard-to-reach place, or even really that secluded, as was evident from the layers of graffiti that constantly seemed to renew themselves, with newer drawings imposed over older ones. He had heard from some of the others that it had once been a seminary, long ago; now, it was merely a littered old husk of graffiti-covered concrete and rusted metal beams jutting from some of the walls that the local slum rats and kids would use to practice their 'art' on.

But it served him fine.

He would often go there, avoiding the shards of broken glass from bottles of alcohol that the bums would leave as well as the thorns from the weeds that were beginning to overrun the place, which seemed to emerge from every little crack in the walls.

He would enter the place (with the words _Fuck the Aliens!_ written above the entrance in blue, and next to them, a crude drawing of what was presumably a number of asari and turians being sexually penetrated) and seek out one of the rooms which he had christened the 'Octopus Room', because on one of the four walls had been drawn a large semi-realistic octopus, contrasting with the intricate - but, in his opinion, much more simplistic - stylized initials and cartoon-like sketches over which the sea creature had been drawn over.

He would go there, and begin collecting small objects from around the room with great care. He would take these - pebbles, shards of glass, bottle caps, even the empty cans of spray-paint that kids would leave behind - and sit down, whereupon he would put the objects in a proximity around him.

Sitting down, he would close his eyes. And sometimes, it would work. Other times, it would not: however, he found that his chances of _it_ happening increased the more he tried; at least, he found that he became increasingly able to do _it._

He would first visualize the objects he had placed around him, forming an image in his mind's eye, trying to recall the details present in the real objects and imparting these as dutifully as he could to the ones he would form in his mind. The exact shape, form, every dent and glint - it was necessary that they be the same, for without the proper visualization, he could not do what it was that he was able to do.

And then, after a few minutes - once the mental images were as close he could get them to resemble the real-world objects -, he would _push._ It involved willing the objects in his mind's eye to move in a certain direction, in a certain way, in much the same way as he would will his hand to move. It would have been impossible for him to describe it in any other way.

And they would move.

Depending to what he had _willed_ them to do, the objects would levitate a few inches off the weathered concrete floor, and they would remain there, frozen in space, so long as he concentrated on keeping them in place; other times, he would make them move along the surface of the place, as if invisible fingers or strings were dragging them.

One time, he had even _willed_ one of the spray-paint cans to bend and contort, as if some great pressure were being exerted on it. He had gradually applied more and more pressure, until there came a loud popping noise and hiss from the can that broke his concentration, startling him and causing him to let the can slip out of his control, to fall and clatter loudly on the floor for a few seconds.

He had stood there for a while afterwards, his heart pounding and knees shaking, for he was not used to interruptions. He had remained quiet, hoping nobody had been close enough to hear (not because he was afraid of being found - it was more that it would be uncomfortable, for he was used to his solitude and did not like being questioned about why he was alone or what he chose to do).

To calm himself, he had stepped out from the room and walked up and down the hall of the ruined place, peeking into the darkened rooms just to make sure that they were empty, though he avoided the room that he had dubbed 'the Room of Faces', for in it, there had been drawn in white a number of faces in human likeness, in a way that they were rendered uncanny and frightening.

And the urban legend that the older kids told the younger ones was that the faces had not been drawn, but that they had manifested of their own accord, spontaneously; and though he knew it was just some tale to scare the younger slum-rats, the fact did not detract from his dislike for the faces, which did indeed look somewhat frightening ( _some punk must have drawn them a long time ago,_ he would think, for he himself had heard the tale of the 'faces' when he was younger from friends of friends).

After he had calmed down - seeing as it was beginning to grow dark -, he had gone back to the Octopus Room to look at the can: so far as he could tell (and he was probably right), the can had still had a bit of content and pressurized gas in it, accounting for the hissing and loud popping noise. He had kicked at the can, and turned around to leave, his footsteps echoing hollowly in the abandoned building until there was only silence and the faint far-off sound of cars trailing off in the distance.


End file.
